Any person convicted of a grooming offence under sections 14 or 15 of SOA 2003 is required to provide the police with certain details, either for a certain period of time or for life. These are called “reporting obligations.” We need to make sure we do everything we can to protect children from online care and predators. It is the process used by people with a sexual interest in children to prepare a child for sexual abuse, sexual exploitation or human trafficking. In most cases, it is very carefully planned and takes place over weeks, months or years – with the aim of committing a sexual offence. Grooming can take place in person or online, but under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, any form of communication with a child for the purpose of sexual abuse is grooming. This crime has been prohibited in various ways since the International Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Women and Children, adopted in 1921 as a multilateral treaty of the League of Nations, which dealt with the problem of international trafficking in women and children. The prohibited traffic was international at that time. The concept of local grooming, where gangs feed victims in the neighbourhood, was defined in 2010 by the UK`s Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre. [9] Sections 474.26 and 474.27 of Australia`s Criminal Code Act 1995 prohibit the use of a “carrier service” to communicate with the intent to procure or expose a person under the age of 16 to an indecent matter for care. Different states and territories have similar laws, some of which use a different age (for example, in Queensland, the victim only needs to be under 16). Such laws across Australia were recently tightened in the wake of the murder of Carly Ryan.
The Home Office recently said it would “leave nothing to chance” in its attempt to tackle child sex care in the UK. Official figures recently revealed that almost 19,000 children were taken into sexual care in England last year (2018 to 2019). Caring for a child means befriending a minor[1][2] and sometimes the child`s family and making an emotional connection to reduce the child`s inhibitions into being sexually abused. [3] [4] Child care services are also regularly used to lure minors into various illicit businesses such as child trafficking, child prostitution, trafficking[5] or the production of child pornography. [6] [7] [8] Under current UK law, it is a criminal offence to arrange (or facilitate) a meeting with a child under the age of 16 with intent to sexually abuse the child or with the intention that another person will sexually abuse the child. It is also a criminal offence to meet a child after the care process. However, new technologies such as social media platforms are regularly in the spotlight, with criminals using channels such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to exploit and abuse children. For example, the NSPCC found that sex offenders were more likely to care for children on Instagram than on any other online platform (32% of the 1,317 cases where a method was recorded), followed closely by Facebook (23%) and Snapchat (14%).
The NSPCC went even further, estimating that in England and Wales, an average of an online child abuse offence was recorded every 16 minutes in just over nine months (based on police data from April to June 2019). This new offence will give the courts the power to detain anyone who sends sexual communications to a child – and stop the process of personal hygiene before it begins. Section 15 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 makes it a criminal offence to meet a child after the grooming process. The new crime will allow authorities, including police and the Crown Prosecution Service, to intervene earlier and eradicate abhorrent care before sexual activity can take place. Anyone convicted of a sexual solicitation offence is placed on the sex offender registry and must notify the police, either for a certain period of time or for life. Failure to comply with the provisions of the register is a serious offence for which the person will be prosecuted, with the risk of being sentenced to imprisonment. Sexual care is defined as gaining a child`s trust through an emotional connection to sexually abuse, exploit or act accordingly. It can be done online or in person, and any communication for this purpose is considered grooming, even if no other crime ever happens. In the UK, people convicted of child sex care can face up to two years in prison, and any grooming offence carries their inclusion in the sex offender register. Any communication with a child for the purpose of sexual abuse is legally considered grooming and is considered a criminal offence under the Sexual Offences Act 2003. Facebook has been embroiled in controversy over whether it takes enough precautions against sexual harassment of children. Jim Gamble, director of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) in the UK, said in 2010 that his office received 292 complaints about Facebook users in 2009, but none of those complaints came directly from Facebook.